Slug Juice

Well, it's my turn to update the blog, and I've been a slow panda, so here we are a month later.

First off, we moved into our new place in North Bellingham area. It's weird living this close to the mall and the major shopping section of town, but convenient when a late night run for kitty-litter or extra cream cheese is in order. The condo's still kind of a disaster, since we spent the first ten days not even living in it (I'll get to that momentarily), but we're slowly unpacking boxes and figuring out what stuff we actually want/need. It's been amusing to have our three cats all back under one roof again. Rei is still our little oddball and instigator of much kitty wrestling on the stairs.

Now, the reason we didn't live in our new place for 10 whole days was because we were house-sitting/nannying for the Userys in the Ferndale 3rd ward. They have two boys, 10 and 12 years old, as well as an older daughter, who is 18. Normally I think their daughter, Charly, would have been able to handle things, but she's in high school and the two boys have varying school schedules, soccer practices and games, etc. so it was not feasible for her to watch them the whole time. It meant Lyzz and I were up far earlier in the mornings than we've been for quite some time (7am as opposed to our usual 8-8:30 am). Dexter, the 10 year-old, and Josh, the 12 year-old, were easy to handle and basically did all the chores, homework, and other things they needed to without coercion. The whole experience was really kind of a look into the future for us, and I think it overwhelmed us both a little to be taking on such a hectic schedule all of a sudden, as opposed to it just happening organically as our little guy grows up.

Along the lines of our little guy, Mal is continuing to be healthy and normal thus far. Lyzz is getting more and more pregnant looking (finally), but without the lower back destroying pregnancy waddle. We had to take a 5 week long class about birth and parenting that the Tech College runs. It was basically an evening where we picked up flyers and informational pamphlets, and then saw a few short videos about car seats, breastfeeding, medical procedures (like epidurals, joy!), and ways to calm a baby (loudly "Shush"-ing in their ear is apparently extremely effective though unsettling to witness). I suspect one of the highlights of the class for both of us was another couple's Bernese Mt. Dog who waited in the car during class but ran around with us afterward. We're totally getting one of those somewhere down the road.

As Mal's due date draws near, I'm getting more and more excited about the whole "daddy" thing, though randomly have moments of "Who said this was okay?!?". Mostly I'm looking forward to the adventure of raising a little person. The part that's freaked out is me wondering how I can screw things up. Part of what's really making Mal's arrival "real" is the collection of stuff in his bedroom upstairs. We painted it a nice light green color, officially called "Christopher Robin's Swing", and now have a crib, changing table, millions of baby wipes, a pile of diapers, and more clothes for the kid than Lyzz and I own combined. It'll be a neat baby room. Apparently, boy baby stuff is officially jungle themed this year, so we have a lot of lions, monkeys, giraffes, frogs, etc. on clothes and other things. My favorite Mal-thing is the hoodie towel with a little monster face on the hood.

Lyzz continues to find ways to keep busy, and look beautiful, while I drive around three counties selling cable and internet services. She's been reorganizing our things, working on a photo album, finding last minute baby things, chasing the cats around the house, drawing, etc. Oh! I may have gotten Lyzz a paying job designing a logo for a company called Puppy Stairs. I knocked on a customer's door on Camano Island and ended up talking about Lyzz's artwork and such with the lady. She showed me her pamphlets and info pages for her business, which sells to customers all across the USA, and said they might be looking to redesign their logos and such. She liked a few pictures I had downloaded to my work phone, so she told me to have Lyzz email her. SWEETNESS!

Yesterday evening we spent the night with my family at WWU's Ryan Stiles show for Family Week, which is when the parents of students come visit and do cool things around campus with their kids. The place was packed, so when Lyzz raised her hand to volunteer for one game we didn't really think much would happen, but sure enough she got called up to do "Moving People" on stage. The game somehow involved racing mutant slugs and ended with one guy getting attacked by his giant slug while the other smeared speedster slug juice all over his face. Yeah....